This blog was originally posted on Fifty is the New.   1. When you have an itch, scratch it. If something is nagging at you, insisting a certain person or circumstance just doesn’t feel right, go with it sooner than later. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief. Plus, your wallet may still be where you left it when you go to pay for your session with that shrink. 2. If you need to fart, just do it. If you Read More…

My friend Mary called to invite me to a dinner party yesterday. The purpose was to introduce a Maasai warrior she befriended to people she thought would appreciate him and his ongoing project: to eliminate preventable deaths from malaria in his village and surrounding areas; to eradicate female circumcision from his culture; and to make male circumcision medically safe. With his own meager means, he had studied to become a licensed rural Health Practitioner, then he opened his health clinic, Read More…

“I never knew how strong I was until now.” Anonymous Haitian a couple of months after the earthquake I say anonymous because I lost track of the emailed article I received months ago, which included one of my fellow countrymen reflecting on the earthquake and its impact on his life. Just before going to Haiti this past August, I spoke with my young niece just returned from her trip there. “How are people faring?” I asked her. To my surprise, Read More…

Originally published on Huffington Post, June 14, 2010 On a fairly regular basis, a friend will ask if I might be willing to spend some time talking to someone they know about the ins and outs of self publishing. It’s a red-hot field and topic regularly covered by the mainstream media because the phenomenon can no longer be ignored. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, over half a million books were self-published last year. However, the publishing bigwigs Read More…

Originally published on Fifty is the New, May 19, 2010 And now for something really important amidst all the issues in our world… My artist friend David Gibson and I were hanging out the other day when the subject of lipstick came up. He’d noticed several small, colorful bottles on my desk—a new line of herbal lip dyes that I sell through my temporary body art business. Anyone who knows me is aware that I never go a day without Read More…